Price of Downtown on-street meters increasing, those in decks decreasing

Monday

Mar 31, 2014 at 10:04 PM

Nick Vlahos of the Journal Star

PEORIA — The jumble of time limits on parking meters in Downtown Peoria is a little nuts. So says the owner of The Nut House.

“I’ve had customers say, ‘Why is this one this one, and why is this one another one?’” Debbie Jackson said from her venerable nut-and-candy shop at 311 Main St. “It would be a good idea to have them all the same. Then there’s no confusion for anybody.”

Starting Tuesday, that confusion should subside.

Color-coded on-street meters that had maximum time periods from 30 minutes to 10 hours will begin to be converted to a standard look and limit — two hours. The changes are simultaneous with implementation of a $1 hourly rate.

The previous per-hour cost of metered parking ranged from 30 cents to 80 cents. The increase at the 637 municipal meters coincides with a decrease in the hourly cost for parking at four city-owned decks. Those hourly rates will fall from $1.50 to $1.

In February, the City Council approved the rate equalization as a way to encourage long-term Downtown parkers to use decks. In theory, that will open more on-street parking for shoppers, diners or short-term business purposes.

“Even though we might have two-hour meters and you’re not supposed to plug the meters, people do, or they move to a different meter,” city traffic engineer Nick Stoffer said. “They play the game of getting the cheapest parking.

“We don’t want somebody that’s going to be Downtown for 10 hours or even four hours to park themselves in front of a business and just take up space all day when you can have in-and-out turnover parking. That’s the goal, to make it more vital.”

A total of 2,651 spaces are available in the parking decks, according to the city.

The new rate for the decks is effective Tuesday. Reprogramming the meters will take a few weeks, Stoffer said.

Meters will accept nickels, dimes and quarters. Some also will accept $1 coins. The rate translates to three minutes for every 5 cents.

Some meters have provided a free 30 minutes upon insertion of the first coin, but that will be eliminated, Stoffer said. Eventually, all meters also are to have yellow tops. Current meters are blue, bronze, green, white or yellow, depending on their time limit.

There will be no change in the multispace meters near the Peoria Riverfront Museum and Caterpillar Visitors Center, Stoffer said. Those parking spots cost $1 hourly.

Deck rates have increased steadily, but this is the first meter-rate hike in about 12 years, according to Stoffer. The meter increase despite the deck decrease doesn’t thrill one Downtown merchant.

“If they have to pay to park here, they’re less apt to come here than they are to go to the mall,” said Sid Link, owner of Main Street Jeweler, 432 Main St. “If it’s more expensive, it’s less enticing to come here.”

Link said his business offers free parking in an adjacent, privately owned deck. But few customers use it.

“They want to park right out front,” said Link, who sounded skeptical about the city’s attempt to alter parking behavior.

But Jackson, who is selling the nut-and-candy business her family has owned for more than 50 years, appears to believe that shift might be worth a few more chips.

“I’ve heard a lot of customers complain there’s not enough parking on the street,” she said. “If people knew that there was, I think they’d come down more often.”

Nick Vlahos can be reached at 686-3285 or nvlahos@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @VlahosNick.